4. Though b do^ri may be rendered " gloriously," or " with glory," yet dvsX^(pdri may not, " receptus est," but rather "assumptus est," and is applied to the ascension of Christ in other places, as hath been showed.
[As] 'for the sense they tender of these words, let them, — 1. Give any one instance where "God" is put for the "'will of God," and that exclusively to any person of the Deity, or, to speak to their own hypothesis, exclusively to the person of God. This is intoler- able boldness, and argues something of searedness. 2. The " will of God for the salvation of men" is the gospel. How are these things applicable to that? — how was the gospel "justified in tlie Spirit"? how was it " received up into glory"? how was it " seen of angels, wf^?j d/yjXo/s"? In what place is any thing of all this spoken of the gospel? Of Christ all this is spoken, as hath been said. In sum, " the will of God" is nowhere said to be " manifested in the flesh ;" Christ was so. That "the will of God" should be "preached by weak and mortal men" was no "great mystery;" that God should assume human nature is so. The " will of God" cannot be said to " appear to the angels ;" Christ did so. Of the last expression there can be no doubt raised.
Grotius insists upon the same interpretation Avith our catechists, in the whole and in every part of it; nor doth he add any thing to what they plead but only some quotations of Scripture not at all to the purpose, or at best suited to his own apprehensions of the sense of the place, not opening it in the least, nor evincing what he era- braces to be the mind of the Holy Ghost, to any one that is otherwise minded. What he says, because he says it, deserves to be considered,
0-4? sfavipuidri b ffapxi " Suspectam nobis banc lectionem faciunt interpretes veteres, Latinus, Syrus, Arabs, et Ambrosius, qui omnes legunt, 0 iipavifui&n." Addit Hincmarus Opusculo 55. illud ©so's,
298 VINDICI^ EVANGELIC^.
" hie positUm a Nestorianis." 1. But this suspicion might well have been removed from this learned man by the universal consent of all original copies, wherein, as it seems, his own manuscript, that some- times helps him at a need, doth not differ. 2. One corruption in one translation makes many. 8. The Syriac reads the word " God," and so Tremellius hath rendered it;^ Ambrose and Hincmarus fol- lowed the Latin translation; and there is a thousand times more probability that the word ©sos was filched out by the Arians than that it was foisted in by the Nestorians. But if the agreement of all original copies may be thus contemned, we shall have nothing cer- tain left us. But, saith he, " Sensum bonum facit illud, o s;panpu6ri. Evangelium illud coeleste innotuit primum non per angelos, sed per homines mortales, et quantum extera species ferebat intirmos, Chris- tum, et apostolos ejus. 'E(pavipudri, bene convenit -inysterio, id
est, rei latenti. Sic et Col. i. 26; <sdp^ hominem significat mortalem, 2 Cor. V. 1 6. Vide 1 John iv. 2, et qu£e ad eum locum dicentur."
1. Our annotator, having only a suspicion that the word &i6g was not in the text, ought, on all accounts, to have interpreted the words according to the reading whereof he had the better persuasion, and not according unto that whereof he had only a suspicion. But then it was by no means easy to accommodate them according to his in- tention, nor to exclude the person of Christ from being mentioned in them ; which, by joining in with his suspicion, he thought himself able to do. 2. He is not able to give us any one instance in the Scripture of the like expression to this, of " manifest in the flesh," being referred to the gospel. When referred to Christ, nothing is more frequent, John i. 14, vi. 53; Acts ii. 81; Rom. i. 8, viii. 8, ix. 5; Eph. ii. 14, 15 ; Col. i. 22; Heb. v. 7, x. 19, 20; 1 Pet. iii. 18, iv. 1 ; 1 John iv. 2, etc. Of the " flesh of the gospel," not one word. 3. There is not the least opposition intimated between men and angels as to the means of preaching the gospel; nor is this any mys- tery, that the gospel was preached by men. 'E^avspwOn is well applied to a "mystery" or "hidden thing;" but the question is, what the " mystery" or " hidden thing" is. We say it was the great matter of the Word's being made flesh, as it is elsewhere expressed. In the place urged out of the Corinthians, whether it be the 5th or 1 1th chap- ter that is intended, there is nothing to prove that adpB, signifies a mor- tal man. And this is the entrance of this exposition. Let us proceed.
'EbiKaiojdri sv Uvsv/Mari. " Per plurima miracula approbata est ea Veritas, ni/su/i-a sunt miracula divina, per fjbsruw/jbiav quae est, 1 Cor. ii. 4, et alibi." "'Justified in the Spirit;' that is, approved by
' In the Syriac version, as edited by Tremellius, the word "God" is certainly to be found. It seems, however, to be one of the emendations whicli that learned Jewish convert to Christianity professed to make in the Syriac original, which unquestionably supports the other reading. — Ed.